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Vietnam has stepped up arrests and harsh gag orders on activists, independent journalists, bloggers and Facebook commenters critical of the government. According to Amnesty International, as of May 2019, Vietnam had in its custody 118 prisoners of conscience. Some have since been released after serving their sentences, but many more have been arrested and detained on similar charges. In June, Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced that it was aware of at least 150 people imprisoned for exercising their rights to freedom of expression or association, and 15 more on pretrial detention.
Speaking to RFA’s Vietnamese Service, Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of HRW’s Asia Division, described the situation. “We're seeing people sent to prison for 12 years or 14 years for basically exercising their civil and political rights or the right to freedom of expression, the right to peaceful public assembly, and the right to associate without government permission,” he said.
Vietnam’s prisoners of conscience include three former RFA contributors, behind bars for their work as journalists. Nguyen Van Hoa, formerly a videographer for RFA, was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2017 after reporting on environmental protests after a massive toxic spill killed tons of fish and devastated fishing communities along Vietnam’s coast.
In March 2020, a Vietnamese court sentenced former RFA blogger Truong Duy Nhat to ten years in prison. Prosecutors originally aimed to convict him on charges of illegally acquiring property, but after failing to find sufficient evidence changed the charges to “abusing his position and power while on duty” as a reporter.
RFA’s third jailed contributor in Vietnam and the Vice President of the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, is currently in pre-trial detention and facing charges related to his criticisms of the state.
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